SILICON VALLEY, CA, January 26, 2023 – SVG Ventures|THRIVE is pleased to announce Farm Credit Canada (FCC) as the lead investor of its third fund, the SVG Ventures Pioneer Fund (Pioneer Fund).

FCC is a federal Crown corporation with a loan portfolio of more than C$44 billion. As Canada’s leading agriculture lender, FCC provides entrepreneurs with the capital they need to grow their businesses through flexible, competitively priced financing and strategic venture capital investments.

The Pioneer Fund, which is planning CAD$75 million in capital commitments, will be deployed to support global agrifood start-ups developing innovative and sustainable technologies.

Agriculture is uniquely positioned to tackle global sustainability challenges, and the Pioneer  Fund will support founders and innovators along the entire agrifood value chain, while seeking to earn competitive returns for investors.

SVG Ventures will continue its model of advancing and elevating start-ups in partnership with Alberta Innovates through its THRIVE Accelerator Programs and recently launched THRIVE Academy, pre-accelerator program funded by Alberta Innovates. Graduates from these SVG Ventures|THRIVE administered programs provide both robust investment opportunities to the Pioneer Fund as well as unique insights into participants’ founders, technologies, and business models.

“We are delighted to have FCC join us as lead investor in our Pioneer Fund,” said John Hartnett, Founder and CEO SVG Ventures|THRIVE. “FCC has been a long-time partner and key supporter of early-stage agrifood tech companies and we are delighted to expand our partnership with this investment.”

“FCC is pleased to be the lead investor in the SVG Ventures Pioneer Fund, which is a natural extension of our involvement in bringing SVG Thrive’s successful global accelerator and platform to Canada in 2020,” said Rebbecca Clarke, vice-president of FCC venture capital. “The Pioneer Fund is an exciting and important next step in bringing needed capital to this growing acceleration ecosystem for start-up and early-stage entrepreneurs and companies in Canada’s agriculture and food industry.”

“Alberta Innovates congratulates SVG Ventures|THRIVE and Farm Credit Canada coming together through the SVG Ventures Pioneer Fund,” said Laura Kilcrease, CEO of Alberta Innovates. Creating wraparound services for agrifood innovation is critical to building a healthy and supportive startup ecosystem. When those companies succeed, Alberta succeeds.”

SVG Ventures is also delighted to welcome the Argosy Foundation to the Pioneer Fund.  The Argosy Foundation is a private family foundation founded in 1997 by John Abele, co-founder of Boston Scientific and is based out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The mission of the Argosy Foundation is to support people and programs that make our society a better place to live.

The Pioneer Fund is the third fund by SVG Ventures|THRIVE.  The Pioneer Fund will make initial investments in Seed to Series A global agrifood startups. To date SVG has invested in over 80 global agrifood tech companies. Their portfolio includes transformational agrifoodtech companies such as Tortuga Agtech, Farmwise, Milkmoovement, Boomitra, Trace Genomics and Burro to name a few.

Three portfolio companies of SVG Ventures’s earlier funds have achieved exits to date, the latest being Serket B.V from the Netherlands.

About SVG Ventures | THRIVE

SVG Ventures | THRIVE is the leading global agrifood investment and innovation platform headquartered in Silicon Valley, and comprised of top agriculture, food & technology corporations, universities, and investors. With a community of over 8,000 startups from over 100 countries, the THRIVE platform invests, accelerates, and creates unparalleled access for entrepreneurs to scale globally to solve the biggest challenges facing the food and agriculture industries. SVG’s global partners include leading government, agriculture, and technology corporations such as Alberta Government, Old’s College, Calgary Economic Development, Corteva, Driscoll’s, FCC, BASF, Kubota, Land O’Lakes, Trimble, Taylor Farms, Bayer, ICL, SHELL, Nutrien, Intel, Valmont, UFA, Yamaha Motor Ventures and Wilbur-Ellis. Learn more at www.thriveagrifood.com.

Media contacts

Alycia Smith
Marketing and Events Manager, SVG Ventures|THRIVE
Alycia.smith@svgventures.com

READER ADVISORY

This press release is not and shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities in Canada, the United States or elsewhere.

Forward Looking Statements.  Certain information included in this press release constitutes forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively, forward-looking statements) under applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking statements typically contains information or statements suggesting future outcomes or statements regarding an outlook. Forward-looking information in this press release includes, but is not limited to, statements concerning the targeted capital commitments of the Pioneer Fund, the deployment of the Pioneer Fund’s capital, the support of entrepreuners in the agriculture and technology industries, the seeking of competitive returns for the Pioneer Fund’s investors, the advancement of start-ups through SVG Ventures accelerator programs (including in partnership with Alberta Innovates) and benefits to the Pioneer Fund as a result of such accelerator programs and the types of investments the Pioneer Fund intends to make. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by SVG Ventures and the Pioneer Fund. Although SVG Ventures and the Pioneer Fund believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because SVG Ventures and the Pioneer Fund can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks (including, but not limited to, those disclosed to investors). The forward-looking information contained in this press release is made as of the date hereof and neither SVG Ventures nor the Pioneer Fund undertakes any obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless required by applicable securities laws. The forward-looking information contained in this press release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.